Faith
by FluffleNeCharka
Summary: Silver isn't as strong as the world thinks he is. Glimpsing inside his mind, in fact, there's a great deal of insecurity as he trains at the Dragon Shrine. Silvercentric drabble, oneshot.


No one else has faith in me.

I have changed. I am not the kid who beat his starter – his _stolen_ starter – senseless. I am not the trainer so desperate for a fight that I would throw myself in front of Ho-Oh to prove something to myself. I no longer scream and punch when I don't get my way. I will never again leave someone behind for dead. I know I did these things. They know I did these things. But it wasn't me. I'm different now.

I don't know what I am right now, but that was not me.

I don't know what I'm doing. I don't understand what this is. Is this guilt? Is this pain inside, this self-hatred, guilt? When I look in the mirror, I feel sick. When I see Clair or Lance and they look at me like I'm the scum of Johto, I don't say anything. I know I am a monster. I have ruined so much. It never mattered before. Now it does. Is that guilt?

He calls it responsibility.

The dragon Master says I've become responsible. How, he doesn't know, but I am suddenly aware of who I am, of my words and the words of everyone else. I hate what I used to be. I was my father. I was him and it sickens me. I hate him. How did I become him? I am trying to be someone else now. The Master says I can change, that I have changed, I just don't see it. He tells me I can be held responsible for my actions now, and I could not before.

I haven't told him much about me. He doesn't need me to do so. Everyone else has told him everything that he needs. Claire and Lance, in addition to Gold (and once, Crystal) have all told him the facts I wish I could forget. That I stole just about anything that wasn't nailed down, including three Gym badges and two Pokemon, destroying anyone who got in my way. They've told him how I used to train for hours against every trainer I could find, how I battled to win at all costs. I don't need to tell him anything like that.

He asks questions, though.

Where am I from? Kanto, I lie immediately, too fast. He gives me a suspicious look but doesn't mention it for the rest of the day. Who are my parents? Just some trainers, I say, not meeting his eyes. Why don't I go home once in a while? I have to train, I reply semi-honestly, I need to change and I won't stop until I do. And where, he asks in shock, did I get that scar on my chest? Nowhere, I whisper, and he just nods.

All these lies weigh upon me. He has taken me in without even batting an eye and I lie. I lie about my region, my family, that I don't have a home. I can't bring myself to tell him the truth. But the new me can't take this deception, can't stand how easily lies roll off my tongue. It feels like I've got a Sneasel on my back. At the same time, I'm the son of Giovanni and I can't let him know that I grew up in a base in Mount Silver, being beaten and ignored in turn for my whole childhood. I can't tell him because he'll think I'm desperate for sympathy or an attention whore... or worse, he'll think I'm weak. I'm not. I'm unbreakable and the past is the past.

He has faith in me despite it all.

He believes in me. He lets me train with his students, even though they're older, more regal men. He lets me learn the same moves as them even though Lance and Clair say it's irresponsible for me to learn any style of fighting. When they tell him this, he waves them aside and says I am responsible now, that I must train my body as well as my mind. On that note, he lets me study with his class, the small trainer school he's opened. The focus is on emotions. Self control. Determination. Mercy. He knows who I am, on some level anyway, and he lets me in anyway. Each day he manages to chip away at my hard shell, and he sees me as who I might've been if life hadn't screwed me over. Maybe this is who I really am. I don't know, but he takes it all in stride.

No one else does. Sometimes Lance or Gold swing by to tell me how they know this is an act. They tell me how they see through this act and they're going to be there when I pull something. They'll be there to help make sure I fall, in other words. Trainers I've known from before have come by. Most just look surprised or quietly ask the Master for someone else, but a few have tried to fight me right there in the shrine. My old self would have laughed at the site. I try not to shake now. I have become such an echo of my father, such a cruel bastard just like him, and I see that reflected in the actions of people towards me. Am I, was I nothing more than Giovanni's shadow?

I want to be someone different than the person who would laugh. It's hard to move on, it's hard and it hurts every day to wake up and face this life. Face that I can't just break rules now, that I can't run around like a maniac. It hurts to know I'm still so closed off when I know I shouldn't be. My self hatred hasn't left me, yet.

But as long as I am not facing it alone, as long as the Dragon Master believes in me, I'll keep trying.


End file.
